World of Opinion
On the violence in Pakistan: The bomb that killed at least 24 people in a hotel in Peshawar is the latest sign of instability in Pakistan. The atrocity has been blamed on local militants in the lawless North West Frontier Province in retaliation for government strikes; others have pointed to Afghan Intelligence, after border clashes between the armies of Afghanistan and Pakistan, whose rapidly worsening relations are being exploited by Taliban militants to establish safe havens in Pakistan.
At the other end of the country, tensions remain high in Karachi, where two days of violence have left 41 people dead and brought pitched battles to the commercial capital. Meanwhile, armed militants in Baluchistan are inciting a tribal rebellion, while North and South Waziristan remain no-go areas for government forces as al-Qaida fighters, criminal gangs and anti-government rebels plot further strikes with seeming impunity.
Pakistan, fractious, violent and unstable, is stumbling towards the nightmare scenario of a failed state.
The president (Pervez Musharraf) faces a dilemma. He cannot quash the rebellions without the army. He has several options, all risky.
The collapse of state authority or the bloody overthrow of President Musharraf would be disastrous for the region, for peace with India and for the global struggle against al-Qaida. Pakistan-based terrorism is already the greatest threat to security in Britain and the West.
General Musharraf must move swiftly to assert authority, and then work quickly to make his government more accountable. The mobs on the street are a threat to all the world.
On Japan’s Constitution:
Japan’s Diet on Monday passed into law a controversial national referendum bill for constitutional amendments.
Since the constitution came into effect 60 years ago, this is the first law that determines procedures for constitutional revision. We are bitterly disappointed by the hasty manner in which this extremely important law was enacted.
Emboldened by the law, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is now more determined than ever to make constitutional revision a major election issue in July. It was actually for this reason that Abe was in such a hurry to pass the national referendum bill.
A new draft Constitution announced by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party forms the essence of the revisions Abe has in mind. Simply put, he intends to rewrite Article 9 and the current Self-Defense Forces will be replaced with a military.
And by lifting the stoppers on the nation’s right to collective self-defense, Japan will be able to use arms abroad. This leaves the possibility that someday, Japan will be like Britain, which invaded Iraq with the United States. Abe owes the Japanese people a clear explanation of what it means for the nation to maintain the proposed “self-defense military” and how it differs from the current SDF.
On the status of Jerusalem:
At some level, it is understandable that the international community regards the issue of Jerusalem as a matter that must ultimately be resolved in negotiations with the Arab world, and in particular with the Palestinians. Israel, since agreeing to the Oslo Accords that define Jerusalem as a final status issue, does not dispute this.
It is one thing, however, to treat a matter as negotiable, and quite another to lean so heavily against one side in a negotiation.
There is no reason or justice, for example, in the international refusal to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Every nation has a right to determine its capital, even if the borders of that capital are destined to be the topic of negotiations.
The policy of refusing to recognize Israeli sovereignty over any part of Jerusalem, far from encouraging a resolution to the problem, is harmful to the cause of peace.
On the Hamas-Fatah clashes:
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas failed to employ the correct spin on his oft-repeated rhetoric when he described renewed Hamas-Fatah clashes as “ghost of internal fighting.”
Not that the PA president would need reminding of the enormity of uncalled for damage that the new fighting has done, the situation does merit a thorough analysis, and goes to show just how much the Palestinians have to blame themselves not only for their continued losses on the freedom-struggle front, but now also for frustration in the wider Muslim world.
When Hamas and Fatah loyalists started shooting at each other again at the Karni crossing point … they struck an arrow right into the heart of the painfully arrived at unity government, threatened to bring Saudi brokered efforts at peace to naught, embarrassed the collective Arab stand for the Palestinian cause and emboldened the Israelis by playing right into their hands.
Again, such needless and mindless internal bickering comes at a time of unprecedented Palestinian suffering on the humanitarian front speaks volumes of the increasingly unrepresentative nature of the Palestinian people’s leadership.
The present madness is definitely not a ghost, it is very much real, and carries extremely grim possibilities for the future if the present course is not streamlined immediately. Very soon, both Hamas and Fatah will either have effectively leveraged, or wasted their last opportunity to prove their worth to their people and the world.